Kim McLane Wardlaw

Rule Changes

Authored majority opinion in January 2026 ruling

Venezuela first received Temporary Protected Status in 2021, shielding hundreds of thousands of its nationals from deportation. In January 2025, newly appointed Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem moved to terminate that protection within days of taking office—an action that two federal courts have now ruled exceeded her statutory authority. On February 3, 2026, a federal judge in Washington, D.C. issued a parallel ruling blocking Noem's termination of Haitian TPS using nearly identical legal reasoning, finding 'substantial' likelihood the decision was motivated by 'hostility to nonwhite immigrants.' The pattern has since expanded: in December 2025, another federal judge blocked terminations for Honduras, Nepal, and Nicaragua on similar grounds, and in November 2025, a New York judge halted the Syria termination. Yet despite these rulings, the Supreme Court has repeatedly stayed lower court orders, allowing terminations to proceed while litigation continues.

Updated Feb 26